


Given The Opportunity

by pheral



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV First Person, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-14
Updated: 2002-06-14
Packaged: 2018-10-06 13:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10335446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pheral/pseuds/pheral
Summary: Spoilers: Window of OpportunitySummary: One of the things that Colonel O’Neill decided to try during a loop in ‘Window of Opportunity’





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written and posted online many years ago, and recently auto-imported to ao3 so I've pulled it into my account.

Given The Opportunity

I don’t know quite why I’m here. Some perverse curiosity I guess. I’ve imagined myself in this situation so many times – desperate to go through with it. I’ve dreamt of it, daydreamed of it, longed for it. But that was when Charlie died, when my soul was lost and I had nothing, now things have changed. I remember the longing though – I remember how badly I wanted something to end my life for me, so I wouldn’t have to find it in me to pull the trigger and send myself to hell. Because whatever hell is like, it has to be better than what I was feeling back then, what I occasionally feel now.

So here I am, fingering a cold, hard gun. Examining all its parts, staring down the barrel, wondering if this means I’m crazy. I didn’t do it then, but I could do it now. Knowing things would always go back to normal, go back to…Fruitloops. What could be so harmful about that? 

I can’t help but wonder what it feels like - suicide. Something I was so desperate to have the strength to do back then, something I had to try and get the Stargate mission to do for me instead. I also can’t help but be a little scared that once I’d done it I might become blasé. It sounds weird but it’s like the feeling you get when you’re sitting in a totally silent room full of people and you get this terrible feeling that you’re about to stand up and scream, just because you can.

I used to get that feeling for a while after the Abydos mission, when I had decided that perhaps suicide wasn’t the answer, decided that there were other ways and that I had to find the strength to face them. I found the strength – to live – and I’m glad. It’s led to a great many good things. But I used to get that feeling for a long while after I decided to live. I used to get back to my temporary quarters, take my gun out of the holster and experience that flash of fear that I might suddenly pick it up, aim it at my head and pull the trigger. I’d stare at it for long moments waiting for it to happen, but it never did, the fear passed and I’d jam it down on some table – out of reach and out of mind.

It looks the same as it always did, my faithful sidearm, it’s saved me a good many times. Now I am both scared and exhilarated to see what it would feel like to have it save me from life, from memories, from fear and pain and terrible regret. 

I check my watch, it’s nearly time, close to the gate activating and the loop happening over again. If I’m to do this I have to do it just before the loop ends - I wouldn’t want anyone else to get involved, this is mine and mine alone to do and feel. Once it is over it will be gone, and there will be no repercussions, no pain, not for me nor for any of the people here on base. That would not be fair. And certainly Teal’c is not aware, I told him I needed privacy this loop and he respects that, I believe he has things of his own to do given this opportunity.

It was strange that this was the first thing that popped into my head when Daniel suggested that we could do anything. It wasn’t a dominating thought of course, it just flashed by in a millisecond – hardly noticed while other evil and very interesting ideas came to mind. It disappeared while I went about my fun, I didn’t really notice it at all.

Then the thought came back, and it stayed, and I find myself here staring that thought in the face…down the barrel. I can feel fear curling round my hand as I grip the gun hard, watching my knuckles turn white. My breath speeds up, I can feel myself ready to do it, and that scares me. It scares me that I have it in me to end my life, that I was so close to doing it after Charlie died. 

Charlie. He died like this. Is there some justice in that? That I should wish to die as he did? Wished Jack, not wish. Wished. I no longer wish to kill myself, I’m doing this out of curiosity – a stupid, clumsy word to describe this, but fairly accurate I guess.

One minute. One minute ‘til Fruitloops. Time to go Jack. Time to go. I finger the barrel, finding myself morbidly wondering what I’ll look like after I pull the trigger. I can’t help it, every detail fascinates me, and if I’m to dispel it from my dreams I feel I must absorb every moment. I lift it to my head, settling it against my temple on the right side. It’s cold, like my heart, steely and hard. 

Half a minute, half a minute ‘til Fruitloops Jack. Now or never.

I pull the trigger.

\--------------------------------

‘Anyway I’m sorry but that just happens to be how I feel about it, what do you think?’

What do I think? What do I think. 

I think it wasn’t as spectularly earth shattering as I felt it should have been. Here I am, and there Charlie is.

It didn’t hurt, and that is some small comfort, but it didn’t change anything for me, I have the same fears and the same regrets. The same pain. I suppose it is foolish to expect that someday it will just go away, foolish but one of the only things that allows me to function every day – without hope we are nothing and I feel the truth of that every day. Suicide was my miracle cure all those months, my last resort should all else fail and should my heart give out. It stayed there, floating in dreams, I was always aware that there was a back door and as time passed it floated further and further away. Strange then that now – when it is at it’s furthest – I should get the opportunity to face it.

Not manypeople can say they’ve taken their last resort, not many can say they’ve died, not many can say they’ve died the same way their son did. It won’t be the last time I’ll blink away to nothing, I’ll die again someday.

Someday it will be over, someday the choices, the responsibility and the decision to live will be taken away from me once and for all. Nothing lasts forever - why is it that we notice that most in the things that we love? The love for Charlie that made me so inconsolably high every time I saw him sleeping, every time I made him smile, every time he called me dad. Nothing lasts forever Jack. But if only he could have lasted for just a little longer. Just a little longer.

**The End**

  


* * *

  


> Yay for Ruth the wonder-horse (no, wait, wonder-beta. Sorry, got carried away!) And massive thanks to the JackFic group who helped me think of a title and revise the end to make this a better and much more depressing drabble! Mmm. I repeat - poor old Jack. Feedback? (if you survive the fic that is) Read on MacGyver. (sorry, MacDuff)

* * *

>   
>  © May, 2002. The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp.  
>  The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters  
>  who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names,  
>  titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.  
> 

* * *

  



End file.
